


Answers

by potentiality_26



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: M/M, Not Trailer Compliant, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Other, Post-Canon, Third Party POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 22:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11473311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: Harry looked in on the trials now and then, but he hadn’t given the candidates a codename to use for him.  He wasn’t the only one, but he was… special.  Jenny guessed that he was in charge because he was on the older side- and because whenever he told anyone to do anything, they did.  Merlin sat directly opposite her while Harry dropped into a chair behind him.  Merlin said, “Well this is awkward.”Jenny tried to look innocent.  “What is?”“I don’t often have to ask candidates to refrain from bugging their instructors.”One of Kingsman's latest batch of candidates has a mystery to solve.





	Answers

**Author's Note:**

> For the tumblr prompt: “Well this is awkward…” 
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

Jenny had figured out that with Kingsman you couldn’t always tell if you were in trouble, or just being tested.  

The trials had been going on for two months, the number of candidates cut in half, and she was always on her toes- even when they were technically done for the day.  So when Merlin gave her coordinates in the manor and told her to arrive promptly, she tried to be ready for anything.

She sat in an ornate sitting room, and guessed from its size and location that it belonged to someone important.  She contained her excitement, but only barely. In trouble or not, she might soon get the answers she was hoping for.  She resisted the urge to wave at the camera by the door.  

A moment later Merlin arrived, clipboard in hand, with Harry behind him.  

Harry looked in on the trials now and then, but he hadn’t given the candidates a codename to use for him.  He wasn’t the only one, but he was… special.  Jenny guessed that he was in charge because he was on the older side- and because whenever he told anyone to do anything, they did.  Merlin sat directly opposite her while Harry dropped into a chair behind him.  Merlin said, “Well this is awkward.”

Jenny tried to look innocent.  “What is?”

“I don’t often have to ask candidates to refrain from bugging their instructors.”

Harry was trying not to laugh. Another reason Jenny thought he was actually Arthur- with the codenames she did know, someone had to be- was that he didn’t have a candidate.  It would make sense if he remained impartial, but she was sure he liked her.  She said, “I thought you might appreciate my taking the initiative.”

“Were you trying to gain an advantage in the trials?” Merlin asked.  

Jenny shrugged.  “Not really.  I have questions, that’s all.  I want to know what it’s like here- what everyone does, what the people are like.”

“We’re supposed to be testing _you_ , not the other way around.”  Harry still looked amused, though.  

“Can’t we do both?”

“You seem awfully casual about this,” Merlin said.  

“Whether you’re going to tell me off, or execute me, or hire me on the spot-” there Merlin snorted- “you won’t yet.”

Merlin lifted an eyebrow.  “Why not?”

“Because there are three chairs in front of me.”  The third was beside Harry’s.  “And I bugged three people.”

That time, Harry did laugh.

Merlin looked sour, but Jenny thought he was playing it up for her benefit.  And before he could say anything, the door opened again.

Eggsy did a better job of hiding his amusement than Harry had, but he winked at Jenny as he walked in.  She met Eggsy after being fired for punching a superior, and he had made her his candidate.  He handled the driving tests and helped with some of the others.  As with Harry, she knew a fair bit about his skills- but not his codename.  

“Merlin’s explained why you’re here?”  Eggsy gravitated toward Harry as he sat in the empty chair.

Harry had once convinced him to help demonstrate a few self-defense moves for the candidates.  The way he looked when Harry pinned him on the mat, the way he held Harry’s hand after Harry helped him up, the way they smiled at each other… all had resulted in a theory among some of the candidates that Eggsy’s presence in Kingsman was best explained thusly: he was the boss’ boy toy. 

That they were sleeping together Jenny didn’t doubt- but she was sure there was more to it.  It was killing her not to know _what_. 

“He has,” she said.  “I hoped you’d see it as a… demonstration.  Of my talents.”

Eggsy laughed, not too reluctantly.  “Did you get anything good before Merlin detected them?”

“No.”

“Well.”  Eggsy sat back in his chair, his slouch an interesting contrast to Harry’s excellent posture.  “Next time you want to demonstrate your talents, do better.”

Merlin sputtered.

“I intend to.”  Jenny had actually already set her plans in motion.  

The three of them put their heads together and talked quietly for a moment. Merlin peeled away first.  “All right, Jenny,” he said.  “You can go back to the dormitory.”

“Yes, sir.”  She left as meekly as possible.  She didn’t want to push her luck too much.    

Adam was waiting for her in the dormitory.  He was the best of her fellow candidates, and she liked to think that maybe he could be her handler- or that she could be his, if things fell out another way.  His sponsor- Lancelot- had escaped bugging because her identity wasn’t at all mysterious- and she was intimidating as hell, not that Jenny would admit it.  

He had also been watching her very well-behaved Doberman.  The dog came when she whistled and she gave him a scratch behind the ears.

“You kicked out?” Adam asked. 

Jenny grinned and shook her head as she sat cross-legged on her bed.

“What are you so happy about?  You still got caught.”

“I meant to,” Jenny said.  “And I think they had me in Arthur’s suite or something.  While I was there, I planted another bug.”  She produced her tablet. “It should pick up audio nicely- and get me video from the camera already in that room.”

As she spoke, Jenny brought up the feeds.  Adam shook his head.  “You’re scary, Jen- you know that?”

“Shhh,” she said, though she appreciated the compliment.  It was working.  She could hear voices from the room she had just left, see Merlin leaving.

“Merlin’s right, though,” Eggsy said once he was gone. “You oughta stop playing favorites.”

“Me?”  Harry looked innocent.  “It was to avoid favoritism that I didn’t even submit a candidate.  You’re the one who sent her off with a ‘spy on us better next time.’  And she’s _your_ candidate.”

“I hardly know her,” Eggsy protested.  “I had all these plans for how I’d pick and I didn’t have time.”  

“You chose well, all the same.”  Jenny flushed a little at the praise. 

Harry and Eggsy were seated where they had been when Jenny left, but Eggsy had slipped off his shoes and propped his feet up next to Harry’s hip.  Harry turned and massaged one of those feet absently.

“I knew they had a thing,” Adam muttered, eyes on Harry’s hands.

Jenny waved him off.   _Everyone_ knew they had a thing.  That wasn’t what mattered. 

“She’s giving Merlin a hell of a time,” Eggsy was saying.  

“It’s good for him,” Harry agreed.

Eggsy sat back a little more, eyelids fluttering as Harry’s fingers moved along his instep.  “He thinks we should’ve told them who we all were from the start.  I wanted to see what happened when they didn’t know.”

Harry squeezed Eggsy’s foot, looking thoughtful. “You’re sure it wasn’t for another reason?”

“Like what?”

“I know you think I regret leaving my old position.”  Jenny had already thought Harry was promoted into his current job- possibly against his will.  The scarring around his temple suggested a recent injury.  “I don’t.  I needed a less active role- I _asked_ for this one.”

“For me.”

“Partly.”  Harry looked unusually grave.  “I’m not sorry.”

“Okay,” Eggsy said, his expression softening and brightening at once. “Guinevere.”

Jenny reeled a little.  That… had not occurred to her, and Merlin was right; it _was_ awkward.  She hadn’t even conceived of a Guinevere position.  It was… what?  A kind of PA?  It would make sense of the power Harry wielded among the Kingsman, if in a different way than she’d thought.  Especially if…

“Very good.  _Sir_.”  Harry’s lips curled into a teasing smile.

“I’m only Arthur ‘cos of some archaic rule about what happened to the last one,” Eggsy said.  It made Jenny wonder what _had_ happened to the last one.  “You don’t gotta call me that.”  

The smile widened.  “You like it,” Harry said. 

Eggsy’s foot came to rest against Harry’s inner thigh.  His expression was still gentle, but his gaze turned dark.  “Maybe.”

Just as Jenny thought about turning it off to avoid seeing anything graphic, the feed suddenly shorted out.  A message appeared on screen: _Satisfied?_

Merlin.  She had known she hadn’t outsmarted him.  Or- well- she had known she might not have outsmarted him.  “For now,” she said aloud.  He would hear her.  

Adam swore.  “You’ve got to be more careful.”

“What’s the fun in that?” she said.  One of them would be the next Galahad, Jenny was sure of it.  And eventually she’d get all the answers she could want.

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/).


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